ABOUT
Professional ​
info​​
Jacob Schepers is a writer and editor living in South Bend, Indiana. He earned his PhD in English and MFA in creative writing (poetry) from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of A Bundle of Careful Compromises (Outriders Poetry Project, 2014) and Ugly Ground Swell Moss (Carbonation Press, forthcoming). His writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from such places as Verse, The Common, The Fanzine, Entropy, Tupelo Quarterly, Harpur Palate, Greensboro Review, and Psaltery & Lyre, among others.
Work​
experience​
Co-Founder & Co-Editor.
ballast.
2022-Present
​
An 501(c)(3) non-profit online poetry journal edited by Jacob Schepers and Sara Judy focusing on more & more & more.
Publishing quarterly. Submissions always free and always open.
Visit at https://www.ballastjournal.com/
Follow on bluesky @ballastjournal.bsky.social
Follow on Instagram/Threads @ballastpoetryjournal
Outreach Specialist.
Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good.
University of Notre Dame.
2025-Present
Duties involve providing outreach and communications efforts for the Franco Institute. He manages day-to-day messaging and publications, strategizes ongoing public engagement, and serves as point person for the Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton Culture and the Public Good annual symposium.
​
​
Adjunct/Term Professor.
University of Notre Dame.
2020-Present
​
Teaching assignments have included courses within the University Writing Program (Writing and Rhetoric), the Creative Writing Program (Poetry Writing), the Program of Liberal Studies (The Lyric Poem; Shakespeare and Milton), the Glynn Family Honors Research Practicum, and the Glynn Honors Humanities Seminar: Great Works of Literature from Machiavelli to Tretheway.
5+1 Postdoctoral Teaching Scholar.
University of Notre Dame.
​2019 - 2020
​
Responsibilities included conference planning and editorial work for Post45, which focuses on post-1945 culture, literature, art, and media, as well as teaching Advanced Fiction Writing within ND's Creative Writing Program.
​
Associate Faculty.
Indiana University South Bend
​2019 - 2020
Responsibilities include teaching two sections of Principles of Composition in IUSB's First-Year Writing Program and The Art of Imitation in the English Department (Three Semesters)
​
Adjunct Instructor.
Holy Cross College
​2016 - 2017
​Responsibilities included teaching Honors Composition to first-year students.
​
Graduate Student.
University of Notre Dame
​2014 - 2019
​
​Experience includes positions as the University Writing Program's Graduate Student Assistant Director (GSAD), as a research assistant for Professor Stephen Fredman using the Ed Dorn and Robert Creeley Collections in Hesburgh Library's Rare Books and Special Collections, as President of the Leaky Bodies Club (the Poetry and Poetics Graduate Student Group), as a teaching assistant for the American Studies department, and as the instructor of record for such classes as "Poetry, Science, and Technology," "Introduction to Poetry Writing," and "Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric."
Awards, Grants, and Honors
Best of the Net Nominee, "A Tool Imposes Itself Upon Us to Use It," Psaltery & Lyre 2025.
​
Best of the Net Nominee, "Excerpt from Vasectomajestic," MEMEZINE 2025.
Finalist, "Colder Country," 2022 and 2023 Antivenom Poetry Prize, Elixir Press.
​
Finalist, "Colder Country," 23rd Annual Poetry Award, Elixir Press.
Semi-Finalist, "Ugly Ground Swell Moss," Saturnalia Books 2021 Contest.
​
Seminar Member, "Adorno's Aesthetic Theory," The School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, 2018.
​
Global Domes: The Notre Dame/Edinburgh/Oxford PhD Workshop Program in History and Literature in England and Scotland, 2017.
​
Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellow Nominee, University for Notre Dame, 2016.
​
Co-winner (with Linda Stern Zisquit), Outriders Poetry Project Competition 2013.
​
Harmon D. Hook Memorial Award (Calvin University 2012).
Languages
GERMAN
Proficiency in reading, speaking, and listening.
​
FRENCH
Proficiency in reading.
Education
University of Notre Dame.
​2014 - 2019
PhD in English
Graduate Minor in the History and Philosophy of Science
​
University of Notre Dame.
​2017 - 2019
MFA in Poetry
University at Buffalo, SUNY.
2012- 2014
MA in English
​
Calvin University (formerly Calvin College).
2008 - 2012
BA with honors in English
Minors in Writing and Linguistics